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Google in The Onion

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA—Responding to recent public outcries over its handling of private data, search giant Google offered a wide-ranging and eerily well-informed apology to its millions of users Monday.

"We would like to extend our deepest apologies to each and every one of you," announced CEO Eric Schmidt, speaking from the company's Googleplex headquarters. "Clearly there have been some privacy concerns as of late, and judging by some of the search terms we've seen, along with the tens of thousands of personal e-mail exchanges and Google Chat conversations we've carefully examined, it looks as though it might be a while before we regain your trust."

Google expressed regret to some of its third-generation Irish-American users on Smithwood between Barlow and Lake.

Added Schmidt, "Whether you're Michael Paulson who lives at 3425 Longview Terrace and makes $86,400 a year, or Jessica Goldblatt from Lynnwood, WA, who already has well-established trust issues, we at Google would just like to say how very, truly sorry we are."

@Micah: Quite true. But it's an example, there is a solution. It's just time consuming to use, and no one really cares. I doubt Bruce will read it, and he's the one with the private key.
It's not too easy to have an encrypted conversation. You have to:
1) have both parties make key-pairs.
2) exchange public keys (easier with a keyserver, but still can be hard. My kgpg crashed trying to get Bruce's key, though gpg (command line, not gui) worked fine.)
3) write the message
4) encrypt the message, possibly sign it. This uses an external app much of the time.
5) send the message.

As opposed to a normal message:
1) Write the message.
2) Send the message.

Evidently that guy carl who posted his signed and encrypted GPG message doesn't understand what GPG is for. Anyone who accepts and trusts your public key just to read that would break the whole web of trust that PGP was designed for!

About Bruce Schneier

I am a public-interest technologist, working at the intersection of security, technology, and people. I've been writing about security issues on my blog since 2004, and in my monthly newsletter since 1998. I'm a fellow and lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School and a board member of EFF. This personal website expresses the opinions of neither of those organizations.